Episode 165: Political Backlash in Sports to Black Lives Matter, and an Interview with Olga Trujillo
This week, Brenda, Jessica, Amira, and Lindsay discuss the political backlash to to the ongoing Black Lives Matter athlete activism [6:47]. After that, Brenda interviews Mexican sports journalist Olga Trujillo about the Mexican Women's Football League [32:23].
Of course, you’ll hear the Burn Pile [49:55], the Bad Ass Woman of the Week segment, starring Scrap Yard Fast Pitch Softball [1:00:09], and what is good in our worlds [1:02:39].
Links
Australia and New Zealand Will Host 2023 Women’s World Cup: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/sports/soccer/womens-world-cup-2023.html
Conceptualizing Backlash Politics: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3481735
Stop Printing the R-Word: https://newrepublic.com/article/158250/stop-printing-r-word
Racist chants in Czech football: Jean-David Beauguel on his abuse from the terraces: https://www.dw.com/en/racist-chants-in-czech-football-jean-david-beauguel-on-his-abuse-from-the-terraces/a-53862644
Burnley 'ashamed and embarrassed' by banner flown above Etihad Stadium during Man City game: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53145201
Amid attacks on his character, Bubba Wallace needs NASCAR to step up in support of him more than ever: https://sports.yahoo.com/a-pissed-bubba-wallace-needs-nasca-rs-support-more-than-ever-against-attacks-on-his-character-184514542.html
The NCAA has lots of rules. Players’ parents wonder why it has none for coronavirus: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/26/ncaa-rules-coronavirus-parents/
U.S.T.A. Reinstates U.S. Open Wheelchair Tournament: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/sports/tennis/us-open-wheelchair-tournament.html
Novak Djokovic Tests Positive for the Coronavirus: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/sports/tennis/novak-djokovic-coronavirus.html
Kim St-Pierre breaks ground for female goalies in Hockey Hall of Fame: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/hockey-hall-of-fame-2020-class-kim-st-pierre-1.5626451
A Softball Team’s Tweet to Trump Leads Players to Quit Mid-Series: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/sports/scrap-yard-softball-anthem-tweet.html?referringSource=articleShare
Bentley head coach Barbara Stevens retires after Hall-of-Fame career: https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-women/article/2020-06-23/dii-womens-basketball-bentley-head-coach-barbara-stevens-retires-after-hall
Morganne Flores Wins Johnny Bench Award: https://d1softball.com/morganne-flores-wins-johnny-bench-award/
Leo Baker will be the first non-binary skater and third out LGBTQ skater to appear in the long-running Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater: https://www.outsports.com/2020/6/26/21303503/leo-baker-tony-hawk-pro-skater-game-remaster-non-binary-lgbt-skateboarding
Transcript
Brenda: Welcome to this week of Burn It All Down – it’s the feminist sports podcast you need. Our heartfelt wishes of health and safety go out to world right now facing the COVID-19 pandemic and I’d like to say that we are thinking a lot about those in precarious economic positions who can’t afford to distance, to stay at home, or access healthcare. I’m Brenda Elsey, associate professor of history at Hofstra University, and I’m joined by my co-hosts: the brilliant Dr. Amira Rose Davis, superstar assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State; the whip-smart Lindsay Gibbs, sports reporter and founder of the amazing newsletter on women and sports Power Plays, she’s in DC; and the incredible Jessica Luther, independent sportswriter in Austin, Texas, and co-author of the now actually real book Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back. On this week’s show we take a hard look at the political backlash against Black Lives Matter in sports, and I interview Olga Trujillo of Diosas Olímpicas and Las Capitanas who’s going to talk about the founding of the Mexican women’s football league, its challenges and hopefully its bright future. Then hopefully we’ll burn some terrible things in sports this week, celebrate some badass women, and tell you what’s good in our worlds.
But before all that, on June 25th FIFA voted to have the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. While it’s no secret I preferred it to go to South America [Lindsay laughs] – never held one, and also the Colombian women’s game really could’ve benefitted from it! Congratulations goes to those bidders who put together a phenomenal campaign to get it. How did you all feel about the announcement? Linz?
Lindsay: Well, you’ve really had an impact on me, Brenda! [laughter] I can guarantee you, I was much more disappointed than I would’ve been had I not known you and read your work and my life hadn’t been so improved by your knowledge. So I was, I mean, I was disappointed it wasn’t in Colombia also for selfish reasons, you know, probably a little bit easier to get to…Selfish reasons, whatever. But then I saw the video – the women, the soccer players and the soccer community in Australia/New Zealand celebrating getting the bid and I was really happy for them. We have a lot of friends of the show in Australia and New Zealand; I want to give a special shoutout to the women who run Siren which covers women’s sports in Australia, a newsletter you should subscribe to. I know they are pumped and I know they’re going to work really hard to make this a really awesome event.
Brenda: Yeah, and shoutouts go to friend of the show Ann Odong and also Moya Dodd, so it was lovely to see them. Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah, I don’t really have any good analysis here. You guys did convince me that it would make sense, it would be good logistically for it to be south of here. [laughter] But I will just say, I am excited. I would love to go, and so I’m saving my pennies…dollars…lots of dollars.
Lindsay: If we have any backers, Burn It All Down benefactors, get in touch!
Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve already started my travel fund. They should’ve given me more time – FIFA! – to build up my travel fund. They should’ve thought of me. But yeah, I’m excited. I think it’s very good cool; I’m very excited about New Zealand in particular, but yeah, Australia has an amazing women’s football culture that they’ve been building and it was very cool to see the images of the footballers on the Sydney Opera House shell, all those pictures were beautiful.
Brenda: Yeah, Amira and I are super excited about going to New Zealand, we’ve talked about that. Amira, are you ready?
Amira: Oh, I am so ready. I don’t remember who asked it in some Patreon thing maybe a year ago, what is your ultimate next travel goals/destination. I was like, NEW ZEALAND – to the point where as soon as I got the Peloton the first scenic ride I did was through New Zealand. So I’m so excited about that. I have to say, I think that Bren called it. I wasn’t surprised about this, I was appropriately disappointed. And also I still could not get over the fact of how long it took to tell this. I know that there was a lot of celebration that it was finally released, and I was just like, I cannot believe this took this long! So that was still in the forefront of my mind, but I am really excited about the way that New Zealand is going to share in this. I’m really interested in the logistics, and I’m really hoping that as my research expands and considers athletes in Polynesia and Micronesia and Indigenous athletes in other parts of the world, I’m very excited for the possibilities of not only going to New Zealand but really getting some time to research sporting cultures there as well. That is what I’m looking forward to.
Brenda: And for those of you that didn’t see my tweet about the decision my co-hosts are referencing, the fact I took issue with was the ways in which Colombia was written about and the ways in which the sexism of their federation was used to say they didn’t deserve to host it – even though players and the Bogotá mayor who’s a feminist champion were coming out and saying how important it was to them. I felt like that was shitty and racist and the narco stuff just came out, it was like, blah.
Amira: Absolutely, and also if sexism is the bar for not being able to host things–
Brenda: Right! [laughter]
Amira: –nobody’s gonna be able to host it, ever!
Lindsay: Just whose sexism is in the prettiest package, is what it comes down to. [laughs]
Brenda: Yeah.
Jessica: Put a bow on it.
Brenda: And as soon as I said that everyone responded and said, “Their federation is so corrupt” and it’s like, [fake coughing] – you know? It’s just not the kind of analysis that I was looking for, but it’s not that I’m not excited for New Zealand and Australia. So, yay!
Okay, in the weeks following the murder of George Floyd in police custody and subsequent wave of Black Lives Matter protests and movements in sports, we have seen also a ferocious backlash, and I wanted to talk about that. For me a backlash is usually just defined as a retrograde reaction to a progressive social or political movement. We’re seeing it in a lot of different ways, whether it’s violence, maintenance of the appearance or normality, invoking nostalgia for an imaginary past, and for people who traditionally have all the power claiming to be under attack and victims. Amira, could you start us off on this discussion?
Amira: Yes, certainly. I entered this discussion as a scholar of history, of African American history in particular, where backlash is absolutely the name of the game. Every step forward comes with a tidal wave of power reasserting itself and hate and aggrievement coming back at you. So I think that this entire moment as it’s started, I’ve been carrying a sense of impending backlash, and then when Brenda introduced this topic it was really good to focus that energy on thinking about how it’s already manifesting in sports in a number of ways. So what we want to do with this discussion today is think through all of the ways that people are engaging in backlash, whether it’s the traditional sense of backlash as Brenda noted where people are responding or yelling or doing all sorts of hateful actions in response to some of the games that we’ve seen in the sporting world over the last few weeks, and also people just clinging to normalcy, clinging to the status quo. We know that the status quo is anything but just and equitable, and so that maintenance that Brenda was referencing, that clinging and clawing and attempting to ignore everything that’s happening and just charge forward ‘business as usual’ in and of itself is a sense of backlash, because it’s a refusal to take the steps that people are taking.
So I wanna start with NASCAR and the inevitable backlash I think we all saw coming in terms of their decision to ban the Confederate flag. You saw immediately people circling outside the racetrack in cars waving the flags; the ‘sons of Confederate veterans’ or whatever that group is paid for a plane to fly the Confederate flag over the racetrack that said “Defund NASCAR.” I think that a lot of this behavior was expected, because you have to pry the stars and bars from the hands of these people. And yet this past week was also filled with all this topsy-turvy-ness in NASCAR regarding the noose that was found in Bubba Wallace’s stall. The timeline for those who weren’t paying attention, or chose not to engage, was the news that broke that there was a noose that was found in Bubba Wallace’s stall – the only Black driver on the circuit – and in the wake of not only the flag ban but Bubba racing in a Black Lives Matter car and coming out quite vocally in this moment, and then the FBI moved faster than I’ve ever seen them move on many things, quite honestly, but moved fast to basically waste no time in saying that “we’ve done an investigation and we’ve found that no crime has been committed” and that noose wasn’t a noose, it was “a pull rope” for the door, and it was really in the garage since 2019 and therefore there was no hate crime.
I wanna focus in on the glee that was expressed by too many people who wanted to use that quick note from the FBI to besmirch Bubba’s character, to equate him with Jussie Smollett or say he was engaging in a hoax, that this was like a contrived incident. It was just a moment of everybody telling on themselves. Will Cain and Bomani Jones had a very interesting exchange over this because Bomani appropriately called him to task for saying that “This is the biggest impediment to race relations.” It’s like, that kind of hyperbole is…If you’re more indignant, if you’re so joyous that this investigation by the FBI declared this wasn’t a noose, then you’re revealing a lot about yourself if it took one sentence from the FBI that there’s no hate crimes to blow up all of your progressive goodwill then – guess what? – you weren’t really having that much goodwill in the first place. The benefit of the doubt is always given to these NASCAR fans who are so angry. Now, within a day, the picture emerged of the noose – and I’m calling it a noose, because it’s a fucking noose…I don’t know, it's a damn noose.
In addition to that, one of the things that NASCAR noted in their own internal investigation is that they swept 29 tracks, 1684 garage stalls at Talladega; they found a total of 11 pull-down ropes tied in a knot and only one of the pull-down ropes was a noose. So if it was there for a year as the FBI says then that’s more of an indictment of NASCAR, if people are walking past this…It’s so clearly a noose. To get mad that people acted swiftly and decisively about a noose being in the assigned stall of a Black driver in the moment is ridiculous. That’s absolutely the right thing to do. Yet the backlash kept coming, and it’s not gonna stop, and we know that, and Bubba knows that as well. Even before this situation he talked about needing to now be careful and knowing that he had to kind of walk with caution moving forward because of the anger and the backlash coming out of this moment. So that is where I would start the conversation, because I think that the backlash from NASCAR fans we all were expecting but the addition of the noose and the misinformation and the backlash against Bubba – who had literally nothing to do, didn’t call this in, was just existing, being a Black ass dude in this white ass sport, and there’s nooses hanging around. Yeah, that’s where I’d like to start the conversation.
I think it’s particularly important…I saw two things that I really made note of. One, this kind of delusion from NASCAR fans that were pointing to Wendell Scott who was an African American NASCAR driver for many years in the mid century, and after the FBI report they were saying, see, we knew that it wasn’t true because unlike other sports NASCAR cares only about ability, we had Wendell Scott racing years ago, so obviously we are totally inclusive. I just was like, LOL. I tweeted a primary source document from a Black sports periodical in the 70s that is an interview with Wendell Scott where the first line is like, “Where’s that n***** that’s drivin’ that car?” He hears that all the time. It’s called Twenty Years of Driving Alone. The idea of holding up his career to say, oh, we’re super super inclusive, is of course delusional. But the way that it was weaponized and kind of wielded back against Bubba I felt was particularly toxic.
Also, the last thing image I take from this week was that moment where Bubba got out of his car and went to the edge of the speedway and met a group of Black fans who had come in Black Lives Matter shirts, and he cried. I keep returning to that image, and in the wake of this kind of backlash all I can think about is how this must be handled, how delicate this must be handled. Because NASCAR is dying, we know that it's dying. It’s in the red, it’s declining. It had a little bump – there’s Black people watching NASCAR when Bubba was racing, there’s a kind of new spotlight on it, and all of those potential gains will be lost instantly, instantly, if they are not prepared, standing up, standing and protecting Bubba especially from the inevitable backlash that is nowhere near over. It’s like the waves coming into the shore, they’re gonna keep coming. So that's kind of what I have my eye on in terms of it, it’s how from here on out that is handled moving forward.
Brenda: Lindsay, did you wanna read a little bit of what Bubba had to say?
Lindsay: He talked to reporters on Friday, in a Zoom call. He said, “Part of my emotion today is one, being wore the hell out. Two, is being a little frustrated. Three, is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.” He talked about how athletes are put on a pedestal and, “there’s not a manual, there’s not a guidebook to tell you how to handle yourself off the course, off the racetrack, off the fields. It’s all something you learn and you go through the trials and tribulations of growth in those incidents. And I think that’s what makes you tougher.” He said, “You just got to be mentally strong. Where I’ve gotten my strength from, couldn’t tell ya. Because I do read into it and I do get pissed off.” So he’s aware of all of this backlash.
I just wanna say, I hope that NASCAR, front office, and all of the drivers continue to have Bubba’s back the exact same way that did when they were pushing his car to the line. That allyship and that protection is gonna need to be just as big on a day-in day-out basis because this is the fight. Don’t make his carry that burden alone. I know obviously he’s gonna feel this in different ways and he’s gonna be in the spotlight and he’s taking that on, but I really hope that what we saw on the track at Talladega, that NASCAR and the drivers don’t let this giddiness, this bullshit from the fans who are gleeful over this statement, keep them from continuing to push Bubba.
Brenda: Jessica.
Jessica: Yeah, I wanted to talk about what Amira said in her intro about impending backlash. One thing I’ve been paying attention to is all this pressure that’s been on the Washington NFL team – who, for anyone that does not know, their name is a racist slur for Native and Indigenous people – there’s been all this pressure for them to clean up their racist act. They did their black square on Blackout Tuesday with no acknowledgement of their own name. So while most people want them to change the name, that’s where the discussion is, and instead the team has tried to show that it’s working on their racism or whatever by scrubbing itself clean of George Preston Marshall who was the original owner of the team. Under his ownership the team was the last franchise to integrate its roster; he named the team the racial slur that it is. So a lot of this started when a memorial or Marshall that used to exist outside of RFK Stadium, their old home, it was defaced and so the city took it down.
Since then the team has removed Marshall’s name from the Ring of Fame at FedEx Field, from the team’s history wall at its training facility. They are “deleting him from all aspects of our website” – which, I mean, this in particular makes me feel…I don’t wanna be this person necessarily, but it does make me feel like they’re actually trying to erase their own history by taking him off of the website. But the team says it’s gonna rename the lower-bowl of the venue for Bobby Mitchell, the franchise’s first African American star player. All that is clearly not backlash, right, of the protests – it’s a response. But these choices have led the public at large to push harder than ever, I think, maybe. I wanna be clear: not Native people. They’ve long denounced this and nothing is new in that regard, but the public is pushing really hard for a name change. I feel like I’ve seen it everywhere. But I’m deeply worried as Amira talked about with the impending backlash, about the inevitability, whenever or if ever we get to the point where they actually do something about the name that people are gonna be real mad. Marshall is easy to get rid of; most casual fans probably don’t care about him, their identity’s not wrapped up in him in the same way that it is with the racist name and logo.
It’s also really easy with Marshall – he was way back when, right? He was before my time, his racism has nothing to do with me or the team. But actively participating in the racist logo, it’s impossible not to be implicated in that. We see it with sports media, right? They’s still publishing the name of the team, even in pieces where they’re denouncing it! They’re actively participating in the racism of it. I’m really glad that they have recognized the racism of Marshall, but if they actually ever do anything – the right thing – and get rid of his longest racist legacy which is the name and logo, the impending backlash, I just…It will be bad. It’s worth and they should do it, they should’ve done it ten years ago, twenty years ago, they should never have named it that in the first place. But I think we have to be really sensitive to what this will look like on the other side.
Brenda: Linz.
Lindsay: It’s going on at all levels. There’s a school in New Jersey right now where they’ve already made the steps to get rid of the cowboy and Indians mascots on the high school and middle school level, and there are tons and tons of white students protesting, you know? There’s this photo of all of these kids protesting their right to be the cowboys and Indians, so I think it’s important to remember that these fights are waging on the local level. I think it’s easy for me because of the media that I consume and the people I follow to think that everyone’s reached this tipping point and, like, this is finally happening, but it’s not. The truth is the fight is well behind the curve in many cities and towns across the country.
Brenda: Another major area in terms of backlash where we have seen just frightening violence is in European football or soccer. We’ve talked a lot about how Black Lives Matter has been so influential in really sparking a lot in European football – Premier League teams changing their jerseys, kneeling; Bundesliga wearing armbands, kneeling, and players like Raheem Sterling calling for structural change. Eastern Europe has had fans back before anybody, and so just with 10% of the fans they’ve managed to commit numerous racial abuses against players, and there’s no doubt it’s disproportionately more intense than it ever has been. It’s not that this didn’t exist. Then the fans have brought these sort of banners, there’s been airplanes reading things like ‘white lives matter’ and the ways in which these hooligan groups describe themselves is as ‘indigenous Europeans’ – and by “indigenous” they mean “white” and that the white people in Europe are the indigenous people to Europe.
The fans and supporters group in places like Sparta Prague, which is a Czech team, a really important team, released statements saying that “crimes against indigenous people in Europe overlooked.” What’s important is that these football supporter groups will be locked in a struggle with anti-fascists, I mean, these are fascists. These are real fascists. They embrace that term. I mean, there’s real fascism in the United States as well, but this this sort of made-up nightmare of antifa in the US is real in Europe and they’re doing real work against these real fascists, and these fascist supporter groups have been used to attack protests, Black Lives Matter protests across Europe – in England as well. So you can check out my colleague, Pavel Klymenko, who’s done tremendous work on this at Fare, and you can see photographs if you wanna do that. Trigger warning: it’s hateful and disgusting. But European soccer tends to also influence US soccer, and these fans have connections with one another.
So the backlash has been really frightening and has carried over from the sports scene into the protest movements. I mean, what is with the planes? Seriously. You are so motivated by your racism that you’re going to commission a plane?! I don’t know how you even do that! Do you call 1-800-RACIST-PLANES-AVAILABLE? So ‘white lives matter’ banners over Burnley flown, and then there’s just your mundane shit in global football, and by mundane I mean Alexi Lalas victimizing himself saying, “It takes courage these days to stand for the national anthem.” [laughs] You know, it ranges. It’s been frightening, but also as Amira said people are really showing themselves for who they are right now, and I hope everybody is taking note at the ways in which this sports stuff is really moving into real violence in real protest movements. Lindsay?
Lindsay: I just wanna briefly address what happened in the NWSL on Saturday. The NWSL is back in action in Utah – no fans at the tournament. We’re recording this on Sunday morning so this is after the first day of games which was on CBS for the debut. The debut was between the Portland Thorns and the Courage and at the beginning – for some reason, even though there’s no fans, it’s an empty stadium! – they decided to go forward with the anthem anyways, had a saxophone player come in and do it, in the middle of a fucking pandemic. But the starters on the field, all 11 starters from both teams took a knee. They were all wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts. Everyone on the sideline except for one backup goalie for the Courage took a knee and also the Courage coaches, but the image of all the players in their Black Lives Matter shirts taking a knee during the anthem certainly went very viral as the first ‘sports are back’ moment. They also held a moment of silence, 46 seconds, before the game began, everyone on their knee in honor of George Floyd. The announcers recognized police brutality often and explicitly, as did the league in statements. Black Lives Matter banners were around the field and everything.
I think that first game it was because so many players were taking a knee it was very easy to almost trivialize or commodify the moment and oversimplify things.
At the night game I think we saw how much pressure this is really putting on Black players and the spectacle that people are turning this into and the fact that really not everybody is on board. This just happened last night, so I’m still kind of processing it in real time. I wanna be quick because we can come back to this, but during the anthem this time it was between the Chicago Red Stars and the Washington Spirit. Not all the starters took a knee, just some did. There was images of Casey Short sobbing into Julie Ertz’s arm on the field, and these images went viral. The player on the other side of Casey Short, Rachel Hill, was not taking a knee. Casey Short sobbing through the anthem, it’s gonna be a photo that people remember forever, and for me the more I thought about it the angrier I got.
First of all, because not everyone was kneeling with her, because not everyone was on the same page, because it became clear afterwards that this locker room had been fighting and trying to figure out how to deal with this and they were all emotionally spent before they went on the field. The anthem should not have been played, I don’t think, period. I don’t think the players should’ve had to be put through this. It ended up kind of commodifying Black grief in this way, and then it put the emphasis on who was and who wasn’t standing. It just really became about so much more, and I think you’re seeing the backlash now. You’re seeing that not everyone is comfortable being unified and how that is impacting these players for real. Casey Short has not come out and said anything as of when we're recording this, and I don’t want put any words in her mouth. I just wanna take a moment to extend solidarity to her, and my heart breaks for her. I hope that the anthem isn’t played, I hope the spectacle doesn’t continue, I hope that the focus is on the work the players are doing and the initiatives and that’s where the league can put a spotlight, as opposed to the anthem stuff which I do think at this point has gotten distracting.
Brenda: Amira.
Amira: Yeah, I think the other news story about the anthem and the continued willful ignorance around kneeling for the anthem was also displayed in softball with the Fastpitch pro league – we have a special episode out now featuring Kiki Stokes and AJ Andrews talking about what that moment meant for pro softball and their reactions to it, so continue that conversation over there for sure. Just to wrap up this segment, we wanted to talk about how even though backlash can seem disheartening and it can seem inevitable and that inevitability can make folks wanna disengage or be cautious about moving forward. I also wanna point to the power of continuing to move through the backlash despite it, so one of the stories that I was closely following was that of Mississippi State football player Kylin Hill who last week tweeted, “Either change the flag or I won’t be representing this State anymore 💯 & I meant that .. I’m tired.”
Of course, like many states, the Confederate flag is embedded within the flag of Mississippi. The backlash to this statement was all of the toxic cesspool racism that you would expect. All of the Mississippi State donors and fans that cheer for Hill every Saturday turned on him instantaneously and it was awful. But last night a resolution passed in Mississippi that hasn’t changed anything yet but it did suspend the rules so that lawmakers could consider a bill that could change or remove the flag. So it’s not over, the fight is not over, and I know that me personally I’m terrified of the backlash to even that. But I think Kylin said it best; he tweeted out last night, “If you From Mississippi you felt this one ❤️🤞🏾”
That’s where my parents are from, that is where my family…It’s the moments like these that compel us to press on, despite the cesspool and the backlash and everything you know that’s rolling downhill with you. That’s to me what bravery looks like, is continuing to walk straight into it, because you know the only way is forward.
Brenda: And now, my interview with Olga Trujillo. Today we are thrilled to have with us Olga Trujillo, a Mexican journalist, an independent journalist, who covers women in sport in Mexico and beyond. She's the founder of a project that we really love here at Burn It All Down called Diosas Olímpicas, so you can find them on Twitter @diosasolimpicas – yes, spelled like Olympic Goddesses – and her new project, @capitanasmx. They’re really wonderful places to keep up with women and sport. Thanks for being here today, Olga.
Olga: Thank you, all of you. Thank you for having me. I am a really big fan of Burn It All Down, every time I can, and also to practice my English. [laughs]
Brenda: I didn’t know, that’s wonderful for us! It’s a new advantage to listening to Burn It All Down: practice your angry English, your feminist angry English!
Olga: I know, I know. It’s very interesting, all the topics you put on the table, so interesting for me.
Brenda: So we’ve been really worried about the state of women’s sport in the pandemic. One fo the leagues we were particularly both excited about and were worried about is the women’s Mexican football league. I just wanted to ask you if you could explain to our listeners maybe a little bit about the history of the league?
Olga: Okay, this league was born in 2017. I call it like a rush league – it was created for the same federation of the main league of men, but in a really different situation. Most of the people didn’t know the players, the women players. They probably knew some names from the girls who used to play the national team, like Charlyn Corral, Nayeli Rangel, Maribel Domínguez – some of them historic women players. And because they used to be on TV, I mean, they used to have this national team and there were big matches or important matches, but no more. All the players, most of the players were unknown players. So when the league pulled out players from all the states, different players that really haven’t practiced any professional football. At the beginning they started with just one little tournament just to prove the style and players because they didn’t really have good conditions, when all of this started of course all the media started to pay attention to women’s football. That was the first time Mexican media payed attention.
So the league continued to have these wonderful players who were fighting to have a place on the team, although they didn't even receive these big salaries – of course the have the minimum. The stars, or the players who we call stars, they receive kind of a comfortable salary to life from. Most of the players of these teams used to have another job or live from their parents, as they still do, still living on supports from other places or other jobs, sadly. So the league started to grow up with media attention, and also the amount of fans were growing. At the beginning of course they started to make comments on social media like, you know, comments that still remain, but they were getting to know each other, getting to know the girls. The comments started to change. At the beginning they were like, “Go to the kitchen!” you know? All this machismo around the football, it was obvious. “Go to the kitchen,” “Kill them,” – sometimes they were so violent. Or, “They are so dumb,” or looking at their bodies, like, objectifying and everything. But after that many men and women started to follow them because of their talent, of course. Because the girls have really been fighting to get the attention that they deserve.
We as independent media, we have to ask for an interview with a player and sometimes they don’t really let them talk. The teams are the intermediaries of the interviews and they ask you, “Okay, what are you going to ask? And I’m going to be present when you interview the football player.” They want to have the control, I think because there are so many things that they don’t want them to say, probably. One time I went with a lawyer of the league and she told me that she didn't really want us, media, to talk about them like, “Oh, poor girls, they didn’t even have shoes, the didn’t even have to buy the uniform.” Now she didn't want us to talk to them, like, empower girls who are really tough and playing with the league. But the truth is that they really spent that moment like, moving from their houses and having to pay rent and having to pay for hydrating–
Brenda: Water, food, yeah.
Olga: –water, food. And it’s a sad situation. The league just grew up on media attention and fans. Of course on this investment from sponsors they started to show up with their brand-new jerseys, like Nike, all these brands that pay attention to women’s sports – lately – because capitalism…I’ve read that capitalists always appropriate the movements, and this time it’s like feminism is a movement that they want to appropriate. [laughs] So it was really growing, it was after the World Cup, even though Mexico didn’t play because we didn’t pass the preliminaries.
Brenda: Sadly–
Olga: Sadly.
Brenda: –from all of us here.
Olga: I know! We lost a very marvelous generation of women football players, but it really continues with the league. It was like this big wave around the world, Megan Rapinoe, it caused so much attention because many many people in Mexico who didn't really care about women’s football started to look and pay attention to women who were moving from only playing football. And we resonate with her – I did resonate with Megan Rapinoe, as a woman who has fight for women’s rights against discrimination, racism, all of these situations that we live in Mexico also. All over the world when COVID started and the pandemic situation, women’s football in Mexico stopped.
We really have this worrying situation…About one week ago, the president of the federation said that on 25 July the league will start. After that announcement more than 75 players are left without a team, and it’s a very worrying situation because there exists a Mexican association of professional soccer players. The president of this association, Álvaro Ortíz, said that most of the drops are due to the contract they signed – 90% of the girls don't sign multi-annual contracts, as men do. Of course they are without teams right now. The league is supposed to be the Mexico soccer league of women, but I wouldn’t really call it that. They earn around $280 minimum, and probably $1300 at the top.
Brenda: Mm-hmm. Okay. That’s a thousand dollars at the top level of play, per month?
Olga: Per month, yeah.
Brenda: These contracts, do they go the entire year or just part of the year?
Olga: No, part of the year. Only the period that the league lasts, like, 5 months.
Brenda: Yeah.
Olga: It’s difficult to live like that. Of course we’re living this structural inequality which we can see in the media, in the courts. During this pandemic I thought we were going to find more information about women’s soccer, like, articles or something like that, because some media or some outlets have more access than us to girls or to directors or to people who are inside the football. But I just saw some interviews, some things like that, but there are like two kinds of media: the ones who have women inside the media and care about women’s football, and the others that talk about sexism, rumors and speculation instead of interesting notes or interviews. As independent women in sports, it’s difficult for us to go against all these point of views of the media, because they really get married with this statement that women’s soccer doesn’t sell. They always try to excuse themselves, you know, trying to say that football still doesn’t care. So it’s kind of saddening because after this pandemic situation we don't really know what we’re going to see. It’s complicated for the players to move from one city to another right now, we don’t really feel confident with travel right now.
Brenda: So just to the US listeners, Mexico has the red-orange-yellow-green sort of scale that they’re using in regard to the threat of contagion from coronavirus. So that’s what Olga’s referring to. So when these 75 players left and it’s announced that they’re going back July 25th; you’re a woman in sports media in Mexico, which I think is just about as challenging as being in sports as an athlete in Mexico, maybe, at the moment? [laughter]
Olga: Yeah, actually it is because I am also a mother of two kids who are at home. Their regular lessons just finished last week, so we have more time with them, and it’s been really difficult. It’s been really such a difficult decision to be working at home and then trying to pay attention to this poor of time…In Spanish we say pobreza de tiempo that women in Mexico have.
Brenda: Time poverty, impoverishment of time. It’s actually a really nice turn of phrase.
Olga: Yeah, because we really…The sector of working women is really being hit because of the pandemic. Many many jobs in Mexico are feminized, like, women who work at hotels, restaurants, even hospitals, and the people who work at home doing chores and everything. It’s been so hard for us, for the women's sector. So that’s the way it is. At Diosas Olímpicas we’ve been trying to put more information about the things we’re watching because they’re really kind of struggling. Individual sports are not suffering as much as team sports, it’s different, you know? An individual sport you can practice in your house, like, in small places and that’s all, but in team sports it’s different, it’s so different. Everything is gonna change, I think.
Brenda: So that all looks very dark [laughs] in terms of the Mexican women’s league. I guess we’ll have too see July 25th what actually happens, but we appreciate your work and that you’re paying attention to it. Did you wanna tell us a little bit about Capitanas…Mexicanas? I mean, it’s a pandemic–
Olga: Yeah, the pandemic! It was Capitanas by Diosas but in Spanish it’s kind of tricky to say “by Diosas” – you can read it sometimes like “Capitanas de Diosas” – it’s kind of difficult. But yeah, as a journalist and as a mother; these women, how do they use what we’ve usually known as our free time? This is like, I was trying to help them with placements or skills or recommendations with professional trainers, where they could take their kids to practice sports. But after the pandemic situation I’m trying to work more as a motivator because we really have to be with our kids. It’s very interesting, I mean, it’s getting so interesting because I’m giving a talk online about this important situation. We put so much pressure on them when we want them to practice sport because all the sports have been so commercialized that sometimes we dream that they could be the champ, the goal on TV, etc, etc.
But our kids sometimes don't even want to practice sports, so I’m trying to give some information about how can we guide them in their travels inside sports. It doesn’t have to be so organized in stages, like from age 5-8 it could be one thing, and then from 8-12 they can start looking for the sport they love. It’s a very new situation. I consider myself as an expert in motherhood and sports because my husband also is a sports journalist, so we have all this kind of inspiration, movies, books and everything to talk about with other parents that sometimes feel pressure instead of feeling happiness for seeing their kids practicing sport.
Brenda: Well, Olga Trujillo, thank you so much for being with us, and for all your work. We really appreciate you at Burn It All Down. Hopefully let’s vamos on July 25th, let’s hope that they make good on the women’s league again.
Olga: Yeah! We also hope that all those outlets like independent outlets and all the outlets that support women in football put so much pressure to see them again at the top of their success.
Brenda: Alright, it’s time for everybody’s favorite segment of the show, the burn pile. This is where we take all the things that have been terrible this week in sports and set them metaphorically for now aflame. Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah, so before I get to my burn this week I wanna give a quick update for my burn last week. The US Tennis Association initially cut the wheelchair competition for the upcoming US Open without consulting any wheelchair athletes. After those athletes expressed anger and frustration as I talked about last week at the USTA’s decision, they announced that the wheelchair tournament would in fact be held from September 10th-13th, so I’m glad that the USTA listened to those athletes.
And now, on to this week’s burn which keeps us on the tennis court. Novak Djokovic, the current #1 men’s singles player in the world and the president of the ATP Players Council which has been actively participating in the planning and return of the regular men’s tour – that feels really important – he decided arrogantly earlier this year to put on an exhibition tour called the Adria Tour. Originally it was supposed to be played in four cities from June 13th through July 5th. He got Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev, and Grigor Dimitrov to sign on. They did their first stop in Belgrade earlier this year; most of the press I saw was about how they filled the stadium to capacity, 4000 people strong. Few were wearing masks and almost no social distancing. The players hugged, they shook hands with the umpire, they took selfies with fans, they signed autographs, they took towels from the ball kids…It was really difficult to look at it.
And then last weekend the tour moved to Croatia. No systematic coronavirus testing was required of anyone before the event began, and now the whole tour has been cancelled because it turns out, in case this is new news to anyone, we are in a pandemic! And not social distancing, especially while playing sports, is a bad fucking idea. It turns out that after the tournament that brought people into the area from other places in the world, Dimitrov returned to Monaco after not feeling well most of the weekend and having to withdraw from his second match because of it. You can see where I’m going with this. Dimitrov then tested positive for COVID-19 and the tournament was immediately cancelled. And then positive cases rolled in. Djokovic, his wife, Borna Coric, Viktor Troicki and Troicki’s wife all tested positive for COVID. Most recently, Djokovic’s coach Goran Ivanišević – who was the director of the event! – tested positive.
The sheer arrogance of putting on this tour at all, and to do so without the proper social distancing measures in place, is enough to burn this. I could stop there. But I really want to read this bit from a New York Times piece about this, which shows how this impacts more than just the tournament itself. “In Zadar, a small coastal town in Croatia that had no confirmed infections until it hosted a leg of the competition, the authorities were left scrambling to trace and test people who might have come in contact with Dimitrov.” They brought this to this town and then left those people with fucking coronavirus. That is so terrible, because in large part it was totally predictable. We are talking about people's health and their lives. It’s so selfish and so infuriating. Burn.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Lindsay.
Lindsay: Yeah, I just wanna burn this quote from Adam Silver – Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA. He was on a conference call with reporters talking about the NBA’s return to the bubble that they’re creating in Disney World in about a month, and he said, “We’re coming back because sports matter in our society. They bring people together when they need it the most.” You know, this isn’t just an NBA thing. The NWSL at the start of the broadcast on CBS yesterday said something similar about why they made the comeback. I just wanna say, I love sports! My whole career is sports. [laughs] I agree that sports are power. You’re not coming back because sports matter in our society, you’re coming back for money, and just fucking admit that, you know? What we don’t need right now is to be untied around sports. We need to be united around fighting systemic racism and getting the coronavirus out of here, like, wearing a mask. That’s what we really need to be united around.
I think these athletes will use their platform but ultimately we could do all that without sports, we could without putting these lives in further danger in a state that is having record numbers of coronavirus cases every single day. Players are gonna get sick, there are gonna be longterm consequences for some people who get infected while playing in this bubble for the NBA or for the WNBA. It’s just inevitable. And honestly, what you’ve decided is that your bottom line is worth sacrificing a little bit, that it is not worth it to leave a whole summer of basketball unplayed. I know some athletes are pushing for it because they want to be competing, because they’ve dedicated their lives to the sport, because they don’t wanna lose a whole opportunity to win a championship or play with their team. I know there are some legitimate competition reasons, but let’s just throw the bullshit out of sports uniting us or society needing sports. What we need, like I said, is to get rid of the coronavirus and to unite around fixing systemic racism. Just get out of here with that bullshit, let’s just be transparent about what we’re doing and about the risks we’re taking and about why we’ve decided that we’re going to pretend things are normal when they are very very very much not normal and nobody should be acting like they’re normal. Burn.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Amira.
Amira: Yeah, I have a burn rooted in exhaustion. It will be brief. I’m just sick of saying the same things, I think, maybe, that’s why I’m exhausted. So yeah. Connie, Alexi, you know damn well why people kneel for the flag. Stop pretending you don’t. This is intentional. It’s bullshit. For years people have told everybody what kneeling means, and I’m over it. Just stop. Yes, Mississippi State fans, yes, NASCAR fans, that flag you cling to is racist, and you know it, which is why you cling to it! Don’t give me ‘heritage not hate' bullshit. It flies in Maine, it flies in Oregon, you know exactly damn well what it’s doing. Just stop. And Clemson: remember how I burned you last week for the fact that you had 19 cases…or what was it, 23 cases of football players that you brought back for voluntary workouts in the middle of a pandemic who tested positive? And guess what you decided to do – keep practicing! And announced that 14 more football players have tested positive this past week! What…?
There’s still a pandemic! Even though you don’t want it to be, that doesn’t mean it goes away, and you know this. But again, like Lindsay just said, your bottom line is more important, so you go on. I guess that’s just why I’m exhausted, is because we’ve said this. I’m quite frankly sick of burning this shit, because at this point it's not willful ignorance, we know what it is. It’s intentional, it’s hateful, it's harmful…And I'll say burn it down because I'll throw it on the burn pile but I’m just literally even over doing that because it’s exhausting to run around in a hamster wheel chasing after the same damn thing. People grind their feet in the mud and wanna stay in a place of hate and harm, and that’s bullshit. So whatever. I’m exhausted, burn it.
All: Burn.
Brenda: My burn for this week I need to add a trigger warning for domestic violence and all violence, very violent. Once upon a time there was a really good goalkeeper for Flamengo, Bruno Fernandes, and he was being scouted by European clubs and rumored about $100 million more or less for just his transfer fee. He at that time in 2013 was jailed in a very important case because he had arranged for the murder of his girlfriend, who was also the mother of his child, to be killed in very awful ways and then fed to a pack of rottweilers. He then was imprisoned and convicted, and now is currently the head of a campaign for a kennel. He has been picked up by sponsors. The fact that he is allowed to be in the public with the jerseys and that the teams have not gone after this, and the fact that the teams and the clubs that he once played for have not made public statements about the fact that he is back in the public eye and that he is sporting these jerseys and using his association with Brazilian football to exist in a public space where he can present himself as anything less than a monster, I would like to burn. Burn.
All: Burn.
Brenda: Well, after all that burning let’s move on to some really wonder work that women are doing in sports and, I should say, this week we also have a non-binary person that we are honoring. So, honorable mentions this week go to Chrissy Carr, a Kansas State ball player who is helping to organize the Kansas State Black student athletes in solidarity with each other and to demand the university take decisive action against racism, including students who post racist statements and make the campus safe and inclusive for all. Chrissy and others have stated they will not play until these demands are addressed.
Canadian women’s goaltender Kim St. Pierre has broken ground for female goalies by being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Natasha Cloud, who is forgoing the WNBA season, says, “I have a responsibility to myself, to my community, and to my future children to fight for something that is much bigger than myself and the game of basketball. I will instead, continue the fight on the front lines for social reform, because until Black lives matter, all lives can’t matter.”
Bentley women's basketball coach Barbara Stevens announced her retirement after a 44-year coaching career that included over 1000 wins and the 2014 NCAA Division II national championship.
Morganne Flores was named the 2020 College Softball Johnny Bench Award winner, which is given to the best catcher in college softball each year.
The Street League Super Crown winner is Leo Baker, marking the first inclusion of a non-binary skater in the Tony Hawks’ Pro Skater series’ 20-plus year history.
And congratulations to the women named to the Muslim Women in Sport Power List 2020. Our very own Shireen is now in the emeritus section. What an amazing selection of global talent.
Can I get a drumroll?
[drumroll]
The badass women of the week go to Kiki Stokes and her teammates at Scrap Yard Fast Pitch softball for immediately calling it quits and sacrificing their career goals and financial opportunities after the organization tweeted to President Trump that their players hadn’t kneeled.
Okay, what in these difficult times is good in your week? Lindsay.
Lindsay: So this is gonna go against a lot of things that I’ve said. [laughs] Shit’s complicated. But I thought the NWSL overall besides playing the anthem did a good job with the comeback. The league has added sponsors, and how you add sponsors during a pandemic is pretty impressive. The players, a lot of them seem really excited. I dunno, I’m so conflicted. But there were moments last night where it was really nice to be watching female athletes do their thing. Then I woke up this morning really anxious just about it all. So that’s complicated…But oh, also, I took a little break. I got out of DC, out of my room for a little bit – that’s why I wasn’t on the episode last week, and that was nice. Nature is good. Rumor has it. [laughter]
Brenda: Amira?
Amira: Hi! Okay, so what’s good this week, I would have to say, is talking to Black women because they're rockstars. I especially wanna give a huge shoutout to Courtney Cox, friend of the show, who is one of my favorite accountability partners, and our conversations turn into hour-long discussions. I also had the opportunity to talk to Kiki Stokes and AJ Andrews and Anna Cockrell and Chrissy Carr this week about various actions in their respective sports, and all of those conversations went so much longer than we intended just because it felt so good to have a space to come together and just like we call a virtual laying of hands, we just kind of show up and take care of each other and be a space to talk about multiple burdens and that was really really really really rejuvenating this week. I’m also excited because a certain musical is hitting Disney+ and I know everybody’s timeline this week will be filled with op-eds critiquing it and I think most of those critiques are very valid and fair, and also I am very excited and I know a certain co-host – I won’t out them – but I know other people are very excited. [laughter]
Jessica: It’s me. It’s me.
Lindsay: I don’t even know what you’re talking about!
Amira: [laughs] So I’m just looking forward to that.
Jessica: Hamilton.
Amira: Of course, humble brag, I did see it with the original cast, but I’m really excited to revisit it and to be able to watch Samari watch it who, you know, remember she played Angelica in camp Hamilton and of course as a theater kid has lived and breathed the soundtrack for eons. But to have her have the visuals feels really important. I’m looking forward to that this week.
Brenda: Alright. And I am looking forward to my baby brother coming to visit today–
Jessica: Oh, yay!
Brenda: –with social distancing and protocols and masks provided. But in any case, he is coming up to visit and I haven’t seen a family member in quite some many months, especially one that is my favorite – one of them, don’t tell anyone.
Lindsay: [laughs] This is private, don’t worry about it.
Brenda: Yeah. Good. Thank you. No one tell on me. So, super excited about that. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah, so she’s not here but she still inserts herself anyways, Miss Shireen Ahmed [laughter] texted me earlier this week and asked me if I would please mention in what’s good that the Dixie Chicks will now be known as The Chicks. So that’s what’s good in Shireen’s world. Yesterday I got the mail and I opened it up and I had a thing from UT Press – it was clearly a book, and I’m like, what did I order from UT Press? And I opened it and it was actually the advanced review copy of my own book.
Brenda: Yay…!
Amira: Aww.
Jessica: That I co-authored with Kavitha. Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back. It came. I was able to hold it and flip through it, it’s like a real thing. It’s hard to explain what that feels like, but it’s good. It’s very good. And then this week really what’s gotten me through is we had, Aaron and I, had been watching the fifth season of Queer Eye at night and that’s what I do before I go to bed and I just love it. It makes me feel good every single time. I appreciate that, especially right now in this moment.
Brenda: That’s it for this week in Burn It All Down. Just a big huge incredible ginormous thank you to our patrons their generous support, and to remind people about our Patreon campaign. You pledge a certain amount to become a patron of the podcast and in exchange you access to special content and rewards, so we couldn’t do this without you. Also, just a reminder, you can always burn day and night with our fabulous array of merchandise. I hear we’re working on masks. For now you can get mugs, pillows, tees, hoodies, and bags at our Teespring store. Go check it out.
Burn It All Down lives on Soundcloud but can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn. We do appreciate your reviews and feedback, so please please subscribe and rate; let us know what we do well and what we can improve upon. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram @burnitalldownpod and on Twitter @burnitdownpod. You can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com and check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You can find previous episodes, transcripts and a link to the Patreon. Again, we would really appreciate any place that you could share or review the podcast with because we would love to keep growing and keep reaching listeners that need to hear this. I’m Brenda Elsey, on behalf of my co-hosts: burn on, and not out.